Please try to talk about your understanding of the unique cultural characteristics of the Loess Plateau in terms of music and dance.

Loess Plateau Culture-- Characteristic Culture of Wei Feng Gongs and Drums

Wei Feng Gongs and Drums were only used as a kind of battle cry to stimulate the fighting spirit and kill the enemy in the history, and then it was passed down as a national art, which has become the characteristic culture of the Loess Plateau in China.

The 威风锣鼓 is a popular collective performance in Linfen area, named after the drummers who show various brave gestures during the performance. It is often performed in celebrations of the lunar New Year, harvests, parades and other joyous occasions. It is said that the first gongs and drums appeared during the time of Emperor Yao in ancient times. It has a history of more than 4,000 years. Every year, on the eighth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar, when Emperor Yao's two wives, E Huang and Nü Ying, went to visit their parents, the people of Yao's tribe beat gongs and drums to see them off. When they returned, the people of their village saw them off in the same way. From that time on, the Wei Feng gongs and drums became a custom. Many large villages have their own gongs and drums.

The Culture of the Loess Plateau--Shaanxi Folk Songs

Shaanxi folk songs are the crystallization of the spirit, thoughts and feelings of the laboring people of northern Shaanxi, the closest companion of the people of northern Shaanxi, and the most direct reflection of the life of the laboring people of northern Shaanxi.

? The main types of songs

North Shaanxi is a place of folk songs, folk songs are many types, commonly known as "mountain song" or "sour song". There are more than 20 kinds of folk songs, including Xintianyou, Xiaojiao, Wine Song, Yulin Xiaoqu, etc., among which Xintianyou is the most characteristic and representative.　

Shaanxi folk songs she has a distinctive regional characteristics: earthy, atmospheric, beautiful gas - earthy, big and majestic, the beauty of the titillating. This is both vulgar and bright enough to make the characteristics of its stand above the temple of the singing world, with a small tune to vent the yellow bells of the momentum.

Shaanxi folk song and dance drama "Hanging Red Lanterns" in northern Shaanxi, people's joy, anger, sadness, happiness which emotion, can be expressed in the form of folk songs. Whether standing on the top of the mountains, or walking in the curved mountain road, or traveling in a flat river on the road, everywhere you can hear the melodious songs floating in the wind. This is the folk song of northern Shaanxi. "The women are sad and cry, the men are sad and sing songs." In fact, both men and women, young and old, love folk songs in northern Shaanxi. On the Loess Plateau, there are both the low and gentle chanting of the maids of honor, and the echoing of the high songs of "stopping the voice of the goat and returning to the voice of the cow" of the younger generation. The north of Shaanxi, is the world of folk songs, the sea of folk songs.

There are many kinds of folk songs in northern Shaanxi, including the four seasons song, the five shifts of the tune, the Range of the tune, the wine song, rice-planting songs, labor horn, song and dance song, Yulin song, Shaanbei set of songs, the two-people Taiwan, custom songs, religious songs and visit the family tune, etc., to the tune and the main letter of the day trip.

Selected Major Songs

Shaanxi Folk Songs

Small Tunes: Narrative-based, usually with scenes, characters, storylines, and detailed descriptions. For example, "Harming Dolls", "Visiting Sister Yu", "Delivering the Lovers", "Four Bowers" and "Lower Willow Forest" are all long narrative folk songs.

Xintianyou: Xintianyou (called "Shuntianyou" in areas bordering Inner Mongolia and "Shanqu" in the Shenmu-Fugu area) is a kind of folk song widely popular in northern Shaanxi Province, with a relatively short length, a product of improvisation, and can be sung freely according to different scenarios. It can be sung freely according to different situations. For example, when villagers work on the ground, go up the mountain to herd sheep, go into the forest to cut wood, or drive donkeys to pull coal, they will let go of their voices and sing when they feel something. The language is simple, the rhythm is obvious, the rhyme scheme is varied, and it is generally a two-stanza structure, with the upper and lower stanzas rhyming, and not rhyming every other stanza. Based on the seven-word sentence or cross sentence, the upper line of the main than Xing or writing scenes and objects, the lower line of the main point of the idea, a combination of real and imaginary, the tune is melodious and high-spirited, rough and unrestrained, rhythm is distinctive, rhyming and harmonious, strong lyrical color. It fully reflects the bold character of the northern Shaanxi people. It is a two-sentence paragraph, paragraph and paragraph can be divided into a joint, can also be independent of a song, similar to the "loose song".

Shaanxi folk songs reflect the richness of social life. Now popular in northern Shaanxi folk songs, most of which were produced in the late 19th century to the 1940s, both reflecting the content of social change, but also the content of the "long work song", reflecting the people of northern Shaanxi Province on the oppression of the feudal unification of the exploitation of the class of resistance, in particular, the revolutionary history of the folk songs, is a batch of precious revolutionary historical data. Like the famous "When the Red Army's brother came back", "Shandandandan blossom red color", etc., is very valuable. However, among the more than 8,000 Shaanxi folk songs, such works are, after all, a minority. Most of the works reflect ordinary people and ordinary things. For example: a small daughter-in-law wants her mother's home, a big girl looking forward to getting married, the girl child fortune-telling, drummers to welcome the bride, out of the people miss their hometown, young people talk about love, couples quarrels and teasing. Also, the stonemasons with song to decorate the monotonous sound of the stone hammer; farmers with song expulsion of loneliness and sadness; drive livestock people will be the melodious song sprinkled all over the rugged lanes; sentimental daughter-in-law with song to pour out the heart of the grievances of the heritage of Shaanxi folk songs. These are basically lyrical feelings. In addition, people in northern Shaanxi also use the folk song form to serve their daily lives: the goods man with the song to sell, farmers with the song to pray for rain, the New Year's festivals with the song to celebrate, entertainment, men and women with songs to celebrate the marriage ceremony, drinking with the wine song to guessing, with the song to into the story of history, with the song to engage in socializing, with the song to recount the major historical events, men and women with the song of young people to talk about love, with the song to recount new people and new things, and even on the grave! Even the weeping at the graveside is replaced by songs. Even scandals are rumored to be spread by songs, and strange things are celebrated by songs.

The Culture of the Loess Plateau--Regional Dance

As a kind of performing art, dance creation has a very broad free space. In our dance creation, we should not only be faithful to life, but also boldly absorb the elements of regional culture, coupled with our own creative efforts, in order to make their works have a unique artistic style.

China's famous dance choreographer Zhang Jigang's series of excellent works like "Loess Yellow", "yellow" is the choreographer in the Loess Plateau people's lives in the most distinctive regional cultural elements of dance, the entire work of the distinctive theme, with a strong cultural style of the Loess Plateau, frank and calm, simple and unadorned.

The whole work has a distinctive theme and a strong cultural style of the Loess Plateau, which is frank, calm and simple.